


Close Reading

by deirdre_c



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Soulmates, They will always find each other, non-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 08:13:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deirdre_c/pseuds/deirdre_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Men willingly believe what they wish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close Reading

**Author's Note:**

  * For [De_Nugis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/gifts).



> A gift for de_nugis. Based on a series of prompts of things she said make her happy.*

***

Sam sits at a desk. It’s his desk, he thinks. At least it feels like his desk. It fits him, as does the chair. Most don’t.

His desk is tucked in the back corner of this one-room cottage, books piled in unsteady stacks knee- and waist-high all around, like stalagmites growing up out of the bare wood floor. A lantern sits at his right hand, its light the only one in the room, spilling across the yellowed pages of his book.

He’s on the third book of Caesar’s _De Bello Gallico_. He recalls it from his Classics course at Stanford, a class he’d chosen for the easy A, but one that turned out to be more challenging than simple Latin recitation. He remembers liking a challenge. Cicero, Caesar, Livy, Juvenal. Sam is working his way through them, patiently, savoring the words, in no hurry to be elsewhere. 

A dog appears at his knee. It’s his dog, he thinks. He feels a trace of a surprise: he would have guessed he’d have a cat. He’s over the whole dog thing, to be honest. They’re always a little on the needy side. He recognizes this particular dog, though. It’s big, a Lab maybe, but not as bulky as retrievers usually are. This dog —Sam’s dog— is leaner, sleeker, brown fur with little darker spots dappled across the back, probably has some hunting breed mixed in.

The dog lays its head heavily on Sam’s knee, closing its eyes in canine bliss when Sam absently cups its face and scratches the soft fur and loose skin behind its ear. When he stops, the dog nudges his hand for more. Just ignore it, Sam thinks. But he’s not permitted to turn back to his reading, as the dog trots over to the door, gives it a scratch, whining to be let out.

See what Sam means? Needy.

He stands up, stretches toward the ceiling to ease the muscles in his back, steps around his narrow cot, sets his half-empty mug of black currant tea gone cold on the sideboard next to the sink. The dog whines again, but Sam is in no hurry. 

There’s a coat on a hook, and a plaid woolen scarf. He puts them on, winding the scarf around his neck and tucking it over his chin and mouth. It’s November, he thinks, and the wind will bite. Hand on the doorknob, he glances back over his shoulder, back around the room, considers how warm and snug it is, looks longingly at the open book on the desk. But there sounds a sharp yip, and Sam commits himself to a walk in the cold.

The dog leads the way down worn and warped front steps. Sam would fix them, he thinks. If only he had the time. A gravel path leads down the hill through an archway of naked trees, their leaves stripped and fallen, crunching under the dog’s paws, under Sam’s boots. He wonders if the dog should have a leash, but it seems content to pace a few yards in front of Sam, never too far ahead, constantly checking back over its shoulder to see if Sam is following. 

Sam follows. It’s not as if they’re going anywhere.

Together they pass into the woods proper. It’s a study in grays and browns, narrow trunks like bundled matchsticks, held upright by thorny scrub, the unobscured sky overhead a marbled, milky ash color. The dog sets a brisk pace up the spine of one hill and down another. As they go along, Sam considers how _hyperbaton_ figures in Caesar’s construction of the ablative absolute. Even stuffed in his pockets, his hands are icy. 

The path opens up into a small clearing, a dinner plate of low, crisp grass. It cracks in two at the far end: the right-hand trail broad and flat, curving invitingly back toward the cottage, while the one to the left falls in shadow, uncertain footing dropping away steeply toward some unknown bottom. Sam should take the right, he thinks. 

He steps forward. The dog blocks his way. It growls and bares its teeth. Sam tries to step past it, but the dog snaps at his legs, barking and driving Sam backward, eight or ten clumsy steps. He stumbles over his own feet, falls on his ass.

The dog licks Sam’s chin in apology.

Sam gets to his feet unhurriedly, heads back to the right. The dog grips his pants leg in its teeth, tugging him furiously toward the sinister path. Sam raises a hand to swat the dog away, but the dog’s eyes lock with his. They plead, he thinks. They recriminate. Like a reflection.

In the end, Sam nods, and the dog releases its grip. Together they pass from the clearing onto the darkened trail.

Sam sits in the passenger seat of a car. It’s not his car, he thinks. But it feels like his car. It fits him. Most don’t.

The driver’s side door opens and a man appears. It’s his brother, he thinks. He feels a trace of a surprise: he would have guessed he’d have a cat.

“Three days. You’ve been asleep for three days,” his brother says. “You gotta come back, so I can mock you for pissing the bed.” Sam looks around, peers through the windshield, searching for the wood, for the cottage. His brother would like the cottage. But there’s nothing there, only a milky ash color.

“Come on, man,” his brother says, and puts a hand on Sam’s jaw, his thumb stroking Sam’s cheek, as if Sam were the cat. “You’re close, so close.” 

But he’s not close enough. So Sam leans forward, leans in. Close enough now to press his lips to his brother’s. His brother tastes like Latin. He tastes like black tea and snug, warm spaces in November. Sam would say he tastes like dog, just to hear his brother laugh. But Sam’s too overwhelmed with the pull of his brother’s mouth, the feeling that he’s flowing into his brother even as he flows back into himself.

Sam lies in a bed. It’s his bed. It doesn’t fit him. Most don’t.

He opens his eyes. He’s in their motel room and Dean is asleep in a straight-backed chair pulled up to the mattress-side, his head pillowed on an arm parallel to Sam’s. A lamp sits on the nightstand, its light the only one in the room, spilling across the yellowed sheets of the bed. Sam’s back aches and his mouth tastes like currant and cat litter. 

Dean wakes at Sam’s slow, abortive attempt to sit up. The smile Sam sees break over his face is like fireworks lighting up a clear night sky.

“You’re back,” Dean says.

“I am,” Sam croaks.

Sam doesn’t think, he knows.

***

**Author's Note:**

> * Here are de_nugis' prompts:
>
>> close reading; cats (dogs I am fond of, but they are a little on the needy side for me); tea (especially black tea with fruity or spicy elements); solitude; November and March (I like the transitional times of year, without too many leaves); walking; certain types of mannered prose; the prose style of Caesar
> 
> I'm not sure whether I hit the mark on the "mannered" prose, but hopefully the rest worked!


End file.
